Sarah Everard murder: Met Police sacks Wayne Couzens

Wayne Couzens will be sentenced for the murder of Sarah Everard in September

The police officer who murdered Sarah Everard has been dismissed from the Metropolitan Police, a week after admitting the crime.

Wayne Couzens, 48, pleaded guilty on 9 July to the murder of the 33-year-old marketing executive.

The hearing was held as soon as possible after PC Couzens' guilty plea, the Met Police said.

He had previously pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey, on 8 June, to the kidnap and rape of Ms Everard.

Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball sacked him with immediate effect.

• Sarah Everard: Daughter, sister, friend and colleague

The disciplinary hearing was held in private after Met bosses ruled that "the need for transparency was outweighed by the risk of interfering with criminal proceedings", and the decision was published straight afterwards.

Police misconduct hearings would normally be held in public. The Met said it would not release - until they are heard in open court - any details of the hearing, which involve the events leading up to Ms Everard's death.

Sarah Everard was optimistic about her future, friends said

Couzens had planned an abduction at least three days in advance, hiring a car and buying carpet protector. He encountered Ms Everard as she walked home to her flat in Brixton from a friend's house in Clapham on 3 March.

Investigators are looking into whether he used his police identification to persuade Ms Everard into the car. The firearms officer spent the day he abducted Ms Everard working at the US Embassy.

Ms Everard's friends raised the alarm when they were unable to contact her the following day.

Her body was found a week later, in an industrial rubble sack, near land Couzens owned in Kent. Ms Everard had been strangled.

Wayne Couzens in uniform, holding a breathalyser

Ms Ball said: "Couzens has betrayed everything we, the police, stand for and following his guilty pleas and convictions I have dismissed him today.

"All of us in the Met are horrified, sickened and angered by this man's crimes. Sarah was a young woman who had her life cruelly snatched away from her. I know she is sorely missed by so many people and our thoughts remain with her loved ones. We are so profoundly sorry."

It emerged that the former officer was suspected of indecent exposure at fast-food restaurants in London and Kent, although he was still allowed to remain on active service.

Couzens is due to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 29 September.